Reaction Paper

- Flash Mob Dance and the Territorialisation of Urban Movement

The author of this paper wants to examine the Flash Mob Dance as a new dance genre. The
paper has an introduction, 5 main divisions or chapters, and a conclusion.
The fisrt chapter, called On Flash mobbing , is trying to explain the whole thing, by giving
some information about the beginning of flash mobbing.
Acording to the author, the flash mob is defined since at least 2003 and is described as a public
gathering of complete strangers, organised via the internet or mobile phone, who perform
a pointless act and then disperse..., a definition which might possibly account for its first
manifestations in 2003. It is impossible to precisely define flash mobbing. We can try to explain
that etymologicaly , eiher by the technology journalist and populariser Howard Rheingolds
(2003) idea of the smart mob, a leaderless organisation, or in Larry Nivens notion of a flash
crowd that supplied the terminology for massive influxes of net traffic in response, for example,
to a website advertisement, announcement or sale. While for some flash mobbing may be just
fun, as a public statement , it is considered pointless.
The author gives us some great examples of flash mobbing, that shows us that this phenomenon
is everyting but pointless. Some of the examples are : the mobile clubbing flash mob at
Liverpool Street or Paddington stations in London in October or November 2006 to pass the time
when waiting for a train or to protest against the British Criminal Justice Act, whether mimicking
Michael Jacksons Thriller video clip in the streets of Paris, Moscow or Mexico City in 2009 as a
tribute to the late star, or whether in July and October of the same year dancing in formation on
the steps of Sydneys Opera House or Londons Jubilee Gardens to protest against climate
change.
The second chapter is about all the things that must be done, before organizing a flash mob
event . The example that the author gives us, is the flahs mob organized in Louvre, Paris, in 2009
, by Paris Opera dancers . Was a fund raising gambit for the childrens charity Chain of Hope
which aims to provide heart surgery for those unable to afford it. As with most dance mobs, a
sound announced the event. Then nine waltzing couples set the scene for three hundred
individuals to take to the stage in what is described as a Bollywood style routine to rhythmic pop

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mus. The spectacle ended with a multitude of ballet shoes inscribed with the charitys web site
being strewn across the performing space. This one was tightly orchestrated both online
and offline. A few weeks ahead of the date and using Facebook, invitations were sent to dancers
giving information about the nature of the event, the dates, times and group numbers for
rehearsals at the Opras smaller theatre. Also included in the announcement were the kind of
dancers and flash mobbers solicited for rehearsals: those who could teach the dance to others.
The third chapter is talking about Flash mobbing between politics and consumerism.
We should be wary, however, of characterising flash mobbing as intrinsically political because of
its possible genealogy, as it has been vulnerable to recuperation by consumer capitalism. There is
no doubt that the mobile, participatory character of flash mobbing and its reliance on the
technological innovations of consumer capitalism, such as mobile phone or internet. However, a
dynamic interplay between the appropriation by corporate businessof flash mobbing and
resistance, through derision and displacement, by popular culture.
The fourth chapter is named spaces, actors and messages of dance mobbing , and its
about all the participants and what they want to say to the public.
Dance mobbing is an effective means on several counts. The very reconfiguration, through the
dancing, of the layout of public space forces attention on the performance.
Three categories defined their mode of staging: celebration, political activism and commercial
advertisement.
The last chapter, Dance mobbing aesthetics and experience, explains us that the formal
aesthetic dimensions of the dance are neither the aim nor the focus for either dancers or
spectators. Choreography is either a straightforward collective routine or series of solos, the
former requiring no professional technical expertise and both permitting the spectator to enter the
dance.
In conclusion, the flash mob is clearly a new dance genre, which has endured and is growing
due to its appropriation by diverse communities of interest with varying objectives, and due to
its extreme adaptability to different contexts of production and performance.

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 Ioana Stngaciu, Universitatea Babe-Bolyai, Cluj Napoca, Master
Publicitate, an I.